It’s almost the end of the year, but there are a few interesting things in store yet:
- The Cube – on at the earlier time of 6:30 this evening.(6:30pm, Sunday, ITV1)
- The X Factor Grand Final – Two hours. I will be watching Black Mirror on C4 afterwards based on reality TV (15 Million Merits) before calculating the Fantasy X Factor result, so be warned. (7:30pm, Sunday, ITV1)
- Connecting Wall Night – for no discernable reason, eight teams will be taking part in an Only Connect Connecting Wall tournament. It sounds like there are going to be eleven throughout the evening plus some celeb anecdotes, so if you’re a fan of the third best round of Only Connect, you’re in for a treat. (8:30pm and 10pm. Monday, BBC4)
- Fear Factor – Rather brilliantly, this is back on US screens on Monday, and Joe Rogan has returned to host. Technology has improved since they stopped making the show originally, so the stunts are expected to be more exciting and terrifying. (Monday, NBC)
- Countdown – last episode of Spelling with Stelling. (3:10pm, Friday, C4)
- Vernon Kay’s Play Your Cards Right – The pilot for this films on Friday. (Friday, London Television Studios)
- One Man Army – Go HOT! (9pm, Friday, Discovery UK)
- Winter Wipeout – Despite having a Summer series already in the can, here’s an even newer winter series. How Christmassy! (6pm, Saturday, BBC1)
- Schlag den Raab – it’s the last one of the year. Expect Christmas trees. (7:15pm GMT, Saturday, Pro Sieben or naughty internet streaming, hopefully.)
Has Nick Hewer begun recording Countdown yet?
I believe he has.
Any reports on how he’s been?
Well a tweet suggested he’s the best since Whitely. I’m sure there’s proper discussion on the Countdown forum.
Doesn’t appear to be much talk on c4c at all. The only comment I can see on there about Hewer’s presenting is that he’s ‘no Jeff Stelling’. Conclusive.
From further lurking on C4Countdown, some more on Nick:
‘Regarding Nick Hewer, I was at his very first recording last month and when the contestants didn’t get the conundrum he turned to the audience where one member, in fact, gave the wrong answer. His comment – “don’t be ridiculous”, in a nasty tone of voice. I only hope that it was edited out and the producers lectured him on good manners.’
It also mentions that he branded the contestants ‘abject failures’ for missing a conundrum 😮
Another comment claims he’d fit in well on the forum. That can’t be good…
I wonder if he’s any good at the banter with Rachel?
Must say, from someone who has watched CD for 26 years but only seen Hewer in a few clips and on WILTY, these insights have worried me slightly, small as they may be. But hey, they’re two incidents on his first block of recordings; I wait to be surprised.
Thanks, very interesting.
As I said, I would like Nick Hewer to be good, but it feels like stunt casting.
I agree with you there, particularly if the stories about Jeff wanting to stay were true – change for the sake of change (on a show which revolved around comfort and familiarity in its prime), discarding a brilliant, popular chairman who clearly enjoyed hosting, for ‘high profile’ Hewer.
From the clips I’ve seen since the announcement, Nick does seem like he has a great sense of humour and a fierce wit, which should mean that a good Countdown host is in there somewhere. Whether he has the fondness for the format that Richard and Jeff shared remains to be seen.
What worries me is that the C4C posts above seem to suggest that he hasn’t quite grasped that the mindset of the average Countdown contestant is probably quite different to those on The Apprentice. Many appear incredibly shy, reserved and nervous, they are there for no substantial material virtue, to play a friendly game; I doubt hearing that their effort was an ‘abject failure’ would put them at ease going into the next recording.
With a bit of luck, this will change as he settles into the psyche of the show. I would hope it does, as I think it’d be a real shame if there was any edge injected into Countdown in the name of a fraction more viewers. It would just go uncomfortably against the heritage of the show, and its presenters, and would mean I’d have to stop watching, which would be quite sad actually.
Anyone else spot Whole 19 Yard on the screens during Black Mirror tonight? Or was it just me and Brig?
Yes, I thought I’d seen it.
As expected, Mark Deeks and Graeme Cole won their respective Countdown quarter-finals, and are still very much on to face each other in Jeff’s final show.
Mark’s demolition of David Butcher sent out a real warning to the other six seeds – and it didn’t look like Graeme was responding to it too well when he trailed Nikki Roberts early on.
But once he spotted DRAGLINES in round 7, there was no looking back.
Anyway, the third QF on Monday sees #3 seed Paul Keane take on #6 seed Dave Taylor.
Paul overcame some early jitters with the numbers to accumulate 744 points, including four centuries, and he has the best conundrum record out of all the quarter-finalists – his 6 from 8 including several one-second solves.
He’s yet to spot a nine-letter word, though, and the highest of his centuries is only 104 – whereas Dave has two niners to his name, and the higher of his two tons is 112.
But Dave has also only solved two conundrums – and his tally of 691 points includes a lowest score of only 61, compared to Paul’s 73.
Could be close, but I expect Paul to be the one facing Graeme on Thursday.
And on Tuesday, it’s the turn of #4 seed Carl Williams and #5 seed Jayne Wisniewski.
Carl rather ran his luck to get here – needing the conundrum to beat Jeff Probst (no, not him!) in his second game, and doing so just as the clock was completing its half-circle; he also declared COUNTER as a “risky” seven during his fourth game, which suggested that he had written down a different word; and he faced further crucial conundrums in his fifth and eighth games.
But 708 points, with a highest score of 116 (his only century) and two 9LWs, make him a pretty good player.
Jayne, though, finished just three points behind him on 705. And, like him, she has one century and two niners to her name. She solved less conundrums (2 to his 3) and her ton score was only 102, but she did better on the numbers (185 points to 173) and her lowest score was 72 while his was just 62.
This one, therefore, is sure to be close – but one gathers that most members of c4countdown would prefer it if Jayne won, purely because she didn’t run her luck to the same extent that Carl did…
Whoever does win, though, will have the task of going up against Mark on Wednesday, and will be very much the underdog.
Co-incidentally I was grazing the ‘specials’ market on Betfair last night, and noticed you can bet on – of all things – the winner of Saturday’s Schlag Den Raab!
Not surprisingly the Raab is the favorite (1.57) and the ‘any candidate’ (2.4). Even more amazingly, a total of £84 has been wagered on Stefan with £59 on the random and unchosen until Saturday evening German.
Who on earth is betting this far out on Saturday?
And more importantly, why?
Not me. I’ll stick to go smashing in big time on the winner of the Norwiegen Pop Idol 2011 thank you very much.
(by the way if anyone from Betfair is reading this – for that plug if that’s not worth a free £20 bet on the King George on Boxing Day, then I don’t know what is..)
Awesome. i have bet on this in play before, you can get some quite good odds on Raab if he falls behind a bit, which is usually worth a punt because you can never rule him out.
The Exit List debuts Tuesday, January 10th. It’s the High Stakes slot. That can’t possibly be good.
No, as ITV’s Tuesday night schedule isn’t nicknamed The Tuesday Night Flopzone for nothing.
It does confirm the mystery as All Star Family Fortunes has been given a surprise recommission to have seven shows airing in the new year. It looks like it’s going the exact same way as High Stakes. Originally planned for Saturday but the ITV execs weren’t impressed, decided to dump it on Tuesday nights and gave the slot to The Celebrity Chase, which was also commissioned after High Stakes was recorded. All Star Family Fortunes was recommissioned after The Exit List was recorded.
At least The Exit List will set the bar for the lowest primetime game show rating for 2012.
Mmm.
Reading the format description and… I’m not surprised they weren’t impressed. My immediate response to it is that while the ‘make it harder to win for a higher potential cash prize’ risk/reward mechanic is good, the consequences for an incorrect answer are too high (Tripply penalising the contestant – higher risk added than expected, no money pot gain, blocks route through maze in some ill defined way that reeks of being arbitrary – I’d drop one of the first two and the last one, instinctually; probably remove the increase list length by three rather than add cash.)
Oh wow, that’s very interesting given it was originally down for Sundays, apparently.
I still don’t think it’s that bad, to be honest.